Where there’s a will, there’s a way

Phan Thanh Gian and two siblings were all born with tiny, immovable legs.

Though they can only move using their arms or a wheelchair, the family has committed to making a living and supporting themselves in their tiny rural community.

“It was miserable after I gave birth to three children, all with leg defects,” says their mother Nguyen Thi Bich in the central province of Quang Binh.

“But I encouraged myself to live on with them.”

“When I held the three desperate children in my arms,” she says, “I thought I wouldn’t have the strength or determination to do so.”

“But back then our life was much more difficult than it is now,” she says.

“We had to work very hard and had very little food.”

But Gian, now 44, and his siblings – brother Phan Thanh Danh, 47, and sister Phan Thi Bi, 45 – decided they would do their best to change their family’s desperate situation.

“The three of us discussed committing suicide to make my parents’ life less difficult,” Gian says.

“But I knew someone who had no eyes and was still able to work. So we decided to live on, as at least we had normal hands and eyes.

“I knew that no one had eternal happiness, and no one had eternal miseries,” he says.

“We had an unlucky destiny, but we would change it with our determination.”

Working, living

The three disabled siblings soon learned to weave fishing net and found the work more than suitable.

“Everyday, we could make around two meters of net, which could be sold to buy nearly two kilograms of rice,” Bi says.

“We cried tears of joy when we received our first profits,” she says.

But the work didn’t last long before the local fishermen went out of business due to a drop in demand.

The three then decided to make non la (conical hats).

“Gian, who was the strongest of the three, had to buy the materials and carry them on his wheelchair while Danh and I made the hats,” says Bi.

But she says they were soon unlucky again when their hat sales slowed and they went out of business for a second time.

“I was in charge of finding a new job because I was the strongest and most literate of the three,” says Gian, who has only a fifth-grade education.

“I decided to study the barber’s trade as there was no barbershop in the village then.”

At first, villagers hesitated to have their hair cut at his shop, and they tested him by having him cut their children’s hair first.

But he quickly won their approval.

“I have some seven to 10 customers every day,” he says. “The job brings back around VND25,000 (US$1.5) daily.”

Gian says his brother and sister are now raising pigs and chickens and planting vegetables.

“We have 20 hens that lay eggs regularly,” says the eldest brother Danh. “And we can sell about 10 pigs every year.”

Danh also works the family’s garden.

He puts his farming tools in a bag and ties it to his body, dragging it along as he uses his hands to walk.

“I have to work for myself,” he says. “I couldn’t depend on others.”

“I hope to eventually raise 100 egg-laying hens. I am working to make the dream come true because I think I can do anything with just my hands and my eyes.”

“We aren’t sad anymore,” says Gian. “Because we can manage to live on our own. It’s a very good life for us.”

Source: Tuoi Tre